Head of household

To qualify as head of household, you must maintain separate households for all of the last six months of the year, not just any half the year, and you must pay more than half the cost of keeping the home where you live, and you must have a qualifying dependent who lives in that home with you.  You may meet the first two tests, but you don’t meet the third test unless one of the children moved with you.

Also, a “household,” is not necessarily a single house or apartment.  Depending on why you were living in different locations, and whether or not you visited each other during those last six months of the year, you may still be considered a single “household”.  For example, if you got together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and and birthdays, you probably defeat the separate residence test unless your visits were only during the daytime and did not include any sleepovers.